Folies a deux of all persuasions
Robert Harris: Precipe. A novel set shortly before the outbreak of WWI and during its first year, focused on the unlikely yet historical love affair between British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith and the decades younger Venitia Stanley, whom he wrote up to three letters a day. Reading this novel was weird for me because I had encountered this story before, in very clever and witty AU form; the fourth novel in Susan Howatch's Starbridge series, Scandalous Risks, tells the very same story, from Venitia's (she's called Venetia in this one, too, only Venetia Flaxton instead of Stanley) pov, and set in the early 1960s, instead of 1914, with the Asquith character a high ranking Anglican clergyman, not the PM. Now Scandalous Risks isn't even my favourite of the Starbridge novels and I have some nitpicks about it, but reading Precipe made me realise how good it is.
It's not that Precipe is bad. Harris knows his stuff, and certainly the whole sliding into WWI British politicking is masterfully told and manages to create suspense despite the fact we all know war won't be prevented, and what all the decisions will lead to. His OC, a police detective originally assigned to Venetia because of the German spy mania having England in its grip at that time (and then he figures out that while Asquith keeps sharing highly confidential information with her, neither her nor any of her servants are spies and that his superiors keep him on the assignment regardless because they intend to exploit this affair as leverage on the PM), is a sympathetic audience stand-in trying to figure out what the hell is going on and what either the 61 old PM or the 26 years old aristo are thinking. And he comes up with a solid belated growing up story for Venetia Stanley, who decides to become a nurse and when faced with the reality of the war realises she has to extricate herself from the needy Asquith and his folie a deux obsession with her. But nonetheless, I don't think the novel made me truly understand or believe what drew its central couple together to begin with. Or what really made them tick. And this is exactly what Susan Howatch as a writer excells at - with all her characters, up and including these two. Now, it's a bit unfair to compare her Neville Aygsgarth with Harris' H.H. Asquith, because Aygsgarth is one of the main characters in the Starbridgte series and at the point Scandalous Risks starts has already had a novel of his own, Ultimate Prizes, so the readers already know how the various paradoxical traits in him - the brain and iron ambition enabling the Yorkshire draper's son rising to the very top of the English class system versus the liberal and often sentimental idealism - intertwine. But Venetia Flaxton in Scandalous Risks versus Venetia Stanley in Precipe is a fair comparison - one novel each (up to the point where either ends, Venetia continues to be a recurring minor character in the rest of the Starbridge novels). Howatch within the novel makes me believe why this 26 years old has gone from just regarding the father of a friend (and a friend of her father's) as a mild crush to someone she has fallen obsessively in love with (and no, it's not the aphrodisiac of power), why she later is the one to end the relationship, and why nonetheless the entire affair damages her in the long term psychologically and emotionally. Harris' Venetia, by contract, just feels way too together from the outset to have let things go this far. I feel Harris' character would have been too sensible once she realised the PM wasn't just mildly flirting not to kindly turn him down, especially since Harris did not make me believe she's similarly in love. (I should clarify that Harris' Asquith isn't the type to to use any blackmail, nor does he have any leverage on her.)
Then, because i'm still sick, I browsed through the four hours diretor's cut version of Ridley Scott's Napoleon to check whether it significantly improves the film. Short answer: Not really. It does make more sense of Josephine, since much of the cut and now restored material are early scenes of hers, and more Vanessa Kirby is always a good thing. But the basic problems of the film are too deeply engrained to be improved by that. (Short version of said problems: Joaquin Phoenix way too old and too dour, showing Napoleon with no human relationships other than Josephine - not with members of his family, not with any of the Marshals - and not showing what Napoleonic France and occupied Europe actually was like leaves you with an endless series of battles and wannabe Edward Albee scenes as a movie, and one which simply doesn't work. For a longer critque, see here. I will say the director's cut version has one scene not starring Josephine which I liked and thought was a neat twist (though it was about her in a big way), and that's when Napoleon after he's become Emperor orders the guy who was Josephine's lover during his Italian Campaign, Hippolyte Charles, to him. Charles goes with weak knees, convinced this is it, now it will be revenge time, though at this point the affair was years ago, but stlll, Napoleon isn't famous for being nice in these matters. They are alone. But instead of going on a roaring rampage of revenge.... Napoleon asks Hippolyte Charles for sex tips. His intimate life with Josephine improves as a result. So that was unexpected and against clichés, but not enough to save the film. Short of getting different scriptwriters and/or doing a miniseries and definitely cast someone other than Phoenix as Napoleon, I'm not sure anything could have.
It's not that Precipe is bad. Harris knows his stuff, and certainly the whole sliding into WWI British politicking is masterfully told and manages to create suspense despite the fact we all know war won't be prevented, and what all the decisions will lead to. His OC, a police detective originally assigned to Venetia because of the German spy mania having England in its grip at that time (and then he figures out that while Asquith keeps sharing highly confidential information with her, neither her nor any of her servants are spies and that his superiors keep him on the assignment regardless because they intend to exploit this affair as leverage on the PM), is a sympathetic audience stand-in trying to figure out what the hell is going on and what either the 61 old PM or the 26 years old aristo are thinking. And he comes up with a solid belated growing up story for Venetia Stanley, who decides to become a nurse and when faced with the reality of the war realises she has to extricate herself from the needy Asquith and his folie a deux obsession with her. But nonetheless, I don't think the novel made me truly understand or believe what drew its central couple together to begin with. Or what really made them tick. And this is exactly what Susan Howatch as a writer excells at - with all her characters, up and including these two. Now, it's a bit unfair to compare her Neville Aygsgarth with Harris' H.H. Asquith, because Aygsgarth is one of the main characters in the Starbridgte series and at the point Scandalous Risks starts has already had a novel of his own, Ultimate Prizes, so the readers already know how the various paradoxical traits in him - the brain and iron ambition enabling the Yorkshire draper's son rising to the very top of the English class system versus the liberal and often sentimental idealism - intertwine. But Venetia Flaxton in Scandalous Risks versus Venetia Stanley in Precipe is a fair comparison - one novel each (up to the point where either ends, Venetia continues to be a recurring minor character in the rest of the Starbridge novels). Howatch within the novel makes me believe why this 26 years old has gone from just regarding the father of a friend (and a friend of her father's) as a mild crush to someone she has fallen obsessively in love with (and no, it's not the aphrodisiac of power), why she later is the one to end the relationship, and why nonetheless the entire affair damages her in the long term psychologically and emotionally. Harris' Venetia, by contract, just feels way too together from the outset to have let things go this far. I feel Harris' character would have been too sensible once she realised the PM wasn't just mildly flirting not to kindly turn him down, especially since Harris did not make me believe she's similarly in love. (I should clarify that Harris' Asquith isn't the type to to use any blackmail, nor does he have any leverage on her.)
Then, because i'm still sick, I browsed through the four hours diretor's cut version of Ridley Scott's Napoleon to check whether it significantly improves the film. Short answer: Not really. It does make more sense of Josephine, since much of the cut and now restored material are early scenes of hers, and more Vanessa Kirby is always a good thing. But the basic problems of the film are too deeply engrained to be improved by that. (Short version of said problems: Joaquin Phoenix way too old and too dour, showing Napoleon with no human relationships other than Josephine - not with members of his family, not with any of the Marshals - and not showing what Napoleonic France and occupied Europe actually was like leaves you with an endless series of battles and wannabe Edward Albee scenes as a movie, and one which simply doesn't work. For a longer critque, see here. I will say the director's cut version has one scene not starring Josephine which I liked and thought was a neat twist (though it was about her in a big way), and that's when Napoleon after he's become Emperor orders the guy who was Josephine's lover during his Italian Campaign, Hippolyte Charles, to him. Charles goes with weak knees, convinced this is it, now it will be revenge time, though at this point the affair was years ago, but stlll, Napoleon isn't famous for being nice in these matters. They are alone. But instead of going on a roaring rampage of revenge.... Napoleon asks Hippolyte Charles for sex tips. His intimate life with Josephine improves as a result. So that was unexpected and against clichés, but not enough to save the film. Short of getting different scriptwriters and/or doing a miniseries and definitely cast someone other than Phoenix as Napoleon, I'm not sure anything could have.